Music is too big a world for a one-size-fits-all model of music career success. Musicians’ career paths are as unique as their individual finger prints.

Nevertheless, there are a few guidelines that I believe apply to anyone trying to make a living career out of their love of music. Here are five:

1. Hone your talent and realize there is a place for you. Not everyone is a Quincy Jones, a Beatles, or a Bruce Springsteen, but if an artist like Tom Waits is a vocalist, then there is definitely room for you too. Do the work necessary to excel in your niche, whether it’s writing a chart, engineering a session, providing backup vocals, or teaching kids the basics of music.

Your goal, to use marketing lingo, is to “position” yourself in your “market” as the go-to person for that particular skill or talent. Don’t worry too much about industry rejection. Every record label in Britain initially passed on the Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The key is believing in yourself and persevering beyond others’ opinions (even those of “the industry”).

2. Connect with as many people as you can because relationships drive music careers more that anything else, even talent. Music is a “who-you-know/who-knows-you” kind of business. The quality and quantity of your relationships will be the primary engines of your progress. Try developing creative projects with fellow-musicians. Perhaps you can combine your live show with two other acts and present the package to a local promoter. There is strength in numbers. Finding the right combinations takes experimentation.

If you’re interested in working in the business side of music, then interning at a music company is the best way to both learn how the biz works and connect with those who can help move your career along.

3. Accept the new powers in your corner and take responsibility for creating your own success. The last twenty years has given you the means to both produce and distribute your own music on a global scale. New models of business are emerging in the world of music. A “record deal” is not necessarily the goal any longer. The Internet has clearly become your “open mic” to the world, and desktop technologies provide you with ways to have the look, reach and efficiency of larger companies. Dare to be different.

Remember, new power also means new responsibilities. Global reach means a potentially far-flung audience. You need to be ready for the incoming messages and questions from this new market. Have you created the best business structures to hold and express your work? Are you setting up effective systems to communicate with your audience? It’s up to you to create your own success and not merely rely on a record company or agent to do the work of making you visible in the marketplace.

4. Understand that every business is becoming a “music business” and so musical opportunities are multiplying. It took a coffee company and a computer manufacturer to teach the music industry how to sell music in the digital age! Non-music businesses everywhere are seeking creative ways to add music-related services to their mix. This means that you needn’t be dependent on the traditional “music industrial complex” for music career success.

Think of companies you already resonate with and try brainstorming ways you can link up. Start on a local scale. It might be a gift shop, bookstore or arts organization. It may even evolve into a full-fledged sponsorship for a tour or recording project. Finds ways to add value to what these businesses are doing with what you have to offer. Forging creative alliances is key to building a multi-dimensional music career.

5. Prepare to be versatile and to wear several hats initially, until your “brand” is established. Most musicians I know have had to cobble together several revenue streams in the early stages of their careers in order to make enough money to support themselves. Many have also had to take on a non-music “lifeline careers” just to make ends meet, pay down debt, or supplement what they earn from music.

I tell musicians to not so much look for “a job,” but to seek out the work that needs to be done. It might be arranging a song, playing a wedding gig, helping organize a concert series, doing a jingle session, offering private music instruction, or writing a review of your favorite band’s new CD. Eventually, all the different experiences merge together into the roaring river that will be your music career. At that point you’ll be visible, in demand and able to name your price. And that’s career success.

Written by Peter Spellman

Article Source: http://www.musiccareers.net

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: www.Music-Career-Guide.com

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Don’t laugh. Many businesses began from nothing more than an idea, and those melodies you have rolling around in your head just might be as good as any other ideas. When you write down or record your new song, you are essentially starting to own your own music business. Your idea has become a piece of intellectual property, as real and potentially as valuable as any physical property you own. Most businesses have at their heart some piece of intellectual property.This used to be a known fact in the popular consciousness — check out a few Perry Mason reruns and you’ll see that “trade secrets” and “patents” were important enough to be motives for murder. With the coarsening of the public perception — all crimes and all plots on daily television seem to revolve around merely passion or pathology — we have lost the sense of the power of ideas.

An idea that becomes an invention becomes an intellectual property known as a patent. The light bulb, chair, and computer that you are using to access this information right now began their existence as someone’s ideas. Once those ideas were set down in tangible form the inventors could apply to the government to have them protected as a patents. Once the patent protections were in place, the inventors or other parties to whom they could sell the patent could start a business or several businesses to produce and sell the physical product. Think of how many different light bulbs there are and how many uses there are for those bulbs. From one idea thousands of businesses, millions of products, and uncountable billions of dollars have been generated.

The minute you write down the song you have rolling around in your head, you have created an intellectual property known as a copyright. A copyright is a bundle of legal rights that cover your new song from the moment of its creation. With some very limited exceptions, you alone have the right to make copies (in visual or audio form) of your new song, to distribute your new song through sheet music and recordings (physical and digital), and to publish your work through mass distribution and public performances. Very much like a patent, a copyright can generate millions of physical properties (sheet music and recordings) and also digital properties (MP3s and the like), and thus generate many millions or even billions of dollars in its long lifetime. In the United States, a copyright lasts 70 years past the death of its author; most other countries have similar terms.

Control of copyrights and distribution and use of copyrighted material — in this case, music — is the whole business of music in a nutshell. Generally, composers and songwriters give control over their copyrights to a music publisher, who in turn prints sheet music and/or looks for a record company who in turn brings in artists, other musicians, and producers to create recordings (which in themselves create new copyrights for the record company). The record company then turns around and finds ways to distribute the recordings — through selling CDs, through digital distribution outlets, through obtaining spots in movies, television, radio, and film, and much more.

All this business springs from the creation of a copyright — and if at any time you decide to take over one or more of the functions of the business for yourself, you will own your own music business. As you can see, each part of getting a piece of music from the writer’s desk to the public is a business unto itself. Just pick what part or parts you want, and you can form your business.

Of course, very like a patent, a copyright is not a good foundation for a business if the work from which the copyright derives is no good. Poorly written songs are like square wheels; your enterprise will never get moving unless you have quality work to base it on. And, like a patent, a copyright needs to be protected from theft; your quality work will be pirated in a heartbeat unless you take the proper precautions. The first step is to register your work with the copyright agency in the country where you live. In the United States this can be done through the U.S. Copyright Office at http://www.copyright.gov.

After that, if you are serious about owning your own music business, you will need to educate yourself about intellectual property, the music industry, and business in general. Fortunately, there are many excellent books in your local bookstore and even on the Web that will be of great service to you. Best to you on the adventure of owning your own music business!

To learn more about copyright and the different parts of the music business, check out the sample page of The Freedom Guide for Music Creators, which you can find at http://www.squidoo.com/himbook.

About the Author
Deeann D. Mathews is the Creative Director of Praising Pilgrims Music, a publishing company in San Francisco, CA.

Article Source: http://www.goarticles.com

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: http://www.music-career-guide.com

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